Step 7: Make the side panels (stators)

Step 8: Assemble everything

Step 9: Complete turbine and movie

Please post (or email me) any questions or comments and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading, Steven

Here's a project that uses some of those dead hard drives you've got lying around.

In the Tesla Turbine, air, steam, oil, or any other fluid is injected at the edge of a series of smooth parallel disks. The fluid spirals inwards and is exhausted through ventilation ports near the center of the disks.

A regular blade turbine operates by transferring kinetic energy from the moving fluid to the turbine fan blades. In the Tesla Turbine, the kinetic energy transfer to the edges of the thin platters is very small. Instead, it uses the boundary layer effect, i.e. adhesion between the moving fluid and the rigid disk. This is the same effect that causes drag on airplanes.

To build a turbine like this, you need some dead hard drives, some stock material (aluminum, acrylic), a milling machine with a rotary table, and a lathe with a 4 jaw chuck.

Maybe instead of using water or air you can use another kind of gas or liquid that might produce more friction on the platters and create more torque. I really have no idea what... Just trying to think outside the box here....

Would it be possible to, instead of having the exhausted air be released, have it be forced into another tube to re-use it? (I'm toying with the idea of using this as a drive for an airsoft minigun, with the exhaust air propelling the BBs)

I'm saying there is always a free lunch, you just don't always get to choose what you are eating.

I was trying to be funny at first. (MY Geek humor sometimes does not translate well)

And then I got serious. In the end there are things we cannot know or comprehend. --- Paradox.Infinity and Causality are paradoxes.What created something out of nothingness?If you are infinite then you have no creation or end.

Causality is a paradox is the sense if you have a finite universe, then something must have created it. (It need not be God) The problem is that at some point you are down to where there was nothing before, and then how does something spring from nothingness?

If not you are dealing with infinity. With infinity nothing has ever been created or destroyed its just changing form?

Still infinity is a paradox for causality because its saying their is no beginning or end, just points between numbers.

Something comes from nothing all the time, easy example is the spontaneous creation/destruction of particle and anti-particle pairs. That's why we have the PROVEN concept of vacuum energy. Also, why we can theoretically have the big bang springing out of nothingness and in this light we have no need for a god to exist...other than the "god-particle", kinda need that guy ha.

Makes complete sense to me, as long as you think of infinity with a positive and negative span. What kimberlyp is saying is that something infinite does not have a beggining... I personaly think infinity to be an endless forward reach that starts at a given point and then never stops so in my eyes the paradox isn't a paradox at all but I do respect the alternative view point. Thanks for making me think about it. Religious Paradox:Can god create a rock larger than he can move? lol

Yes, well with causality we can pick a particular point and go forward on that point towards infinity.

But Causality is always a function of the state before that point in time.

Maybe its a circular function? Symmetrical on the macro scale, and non symmetric locally. IN which case we keep returning to 0 and all numbers are positive? We descend into a world of fractals. An infinite rabbit hole that keeps Excedrin selling well.

Something without a true beginning or end is as wacky as any religion!

Causality either maps to infinity or God or it breaks down and is no longer valid.

Causality needs time but if there is no change in time, ie: the universe is reduced to a single common state variable, then all we need is activation energy based on a density function of that state variable, which results in a second state variable.

Then you can map it all with a circular function and say everything is infinite and be satisfied. Except I would say why is there anything?

Science shows us how things work or can work, and philosophy and or religion tells us why?

So to rephrase: How is it that we can get something from nothing?In the Universe I live in energy and matter are the same thing in different clothing. Practical physics deals with finite measurement. Mathematical abstractions do not have this limit.

Religious Paradox:Can god create a rock larger than he can move? lol

I would say no based on the 1st law of Thermo. It would be over unity!

For those that don't like math but are still confused: notice that it is basically a closed system (rotationally) from the point of force (the air being blown in). The air circulates in the first platter set until the air pressure is too great and it escapes through the center holes of the platters (ignoring air escaping from the outside edges). This creates a pressure differential between the side of the hole being "pushed" on and the "back side" of the hole, inducing a spin. The pressure differential builds in the next platter layer and then moves out again, and again, and again until it escapes freely from the last platter set's center holes. Because of energy loss from air escaping around the platters, friction from the bearings and other natural energy sinks, the inside platters exert more torque pressure than the outside ones (math stuffs go here for proof). Good thing about this design is that you can use some "simple" thermodynamics to have a relatively low pressure, large area front condensed into a high pressure, small area front to get your air pressure from the wind for "free" (think of a properly tuned funnel) to drive an electrical generating motor thingy off of the axle with those new found magnetic thingies...

About This Instructable

Bio:I have B.S. degrees in both Physics and Electrical Engineering. I do Lecture Demonstrations for the University of Washington Department of Physics.
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